Cheating

The industrial revolution has arrived!

I asked Hubby if the people opposed to the Industrial Revolution were called "frame breakers." I don't know where I got that from, which is why I asked.

He said they were called "Luddites," but that they went after the mechanized weaving looms.

So I should be safe.

Yarn Everywhere

I bought the knitting machine on Sunday.

And, contrary to the weaving loom I acquired at the beginning of the month, the knitting machine did come out of left field.

But it is a logical step.

You see, since I have the best job ever, I recently received three big boxes of sample yarns.

Once again, it's a lot of single balls. Which is to say if I have multiple balls of one type it won't be 10 balls of blue, it will be ten different colors.

So the options are just knitting and crocheting random swatch squares or trying to come up with striped projects.

I told myself that this time I won't fall into the striped project trap like I did last year.

Two Hands vs Two Tons of Yarn

Since I only have two hands and there are only 24 hours in the day all I would ever knit would be swatches.

As nice as all this yarn is that prospect is unacceptable. I am both a process AND project knitter.

How can I be both? Well, I like the finished project, but I also enjoy the knitting process that gets me there. Although I enjoy having a mindless stockinette stitch project to work on when I'm tired or watching good TV, I like to know there is a goal in sight other than keeping my hands busy.

Hence the knitting machine.

If my cunning plan works I'll be able to zip out squares, crochet off a few rows, then get back to my projects.

Stumbling Along

The first square I did on Sunday was an ordeal. But it was a fun ordeal since the machine was new and shiny.

Also, I had figured the first square would be a train wreck since I'd never used a knitting machine before.

I didn't watch the instructional DVD because the booklet had very nice clear pictures allowing me to just plunge in.

Monday morning I got up and zipped out another square of the same smooth, worsted weight yarn (in a different color) in about an hour. I was feeling pretty good about my plan.

Then Monday night I tried a bulky boucle yarn.

And I tried.

And I tried.

And then I tried another bulky singles sort of yarn.

And it was just as frustrating.

And I found it necessary to pack the machine back in it's box because I was so uptight I was either going to crack a tooth from clenching my jaw or throw the machine out the window.

This was disappointing because the bulky yarns are the ones I was really looking forward to doing on the machine. Turns out I don't like knitting with big needles. US7 or US8 is about as big as I generally go.

Then on Tuesday I reassembled it and tried another smooth worsted yarn and everything was sunshine and light again.

Today it is also playing nicely. The square on the machine in the picture is Louisa Harding Grace Silk and Wool. It knit up very easily. I'm back to thinking my plan might work.

I think I'll give each yarn a go and if it doesn't work in the first couple rows I won't fight it. I'll just redirect to hand-knitting the swatch. It won't be a big deal since there are other yarns I've already eliminated from machine possibility for being either too thin, too thick, or too novel.

One way or another I'll show all this yarn who's boss!